


this is not the end

by utsu



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Friendship/Love, Future Fic, Gen, Growing Up, Introspection, M/M, Running Away, Self-Acceptance, Separations, Time Skips, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2726597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utsu/pseuds/utsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why was it that words with enough power to crush him and make his chest feel like it was caving in on him always came in threes? My first friend, my best friend, we’ll meet again.</p>
<p>  <i>Gon is close.</i></p>
<p>I love you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is not the end

_Hypothesis: To burn and not consume._  
 _Hypothesis: To consume and not extinguish._  
 _-Daphne Gottlieb_  
  
 

Before meeting Gon, Killua had never run from anything in his life.

There had been times when he’d faced off against someone strong enough to bring chills across his skin, but even then, he had stayed, Illumi’s words an eternal chant in his mind, dripping dark and insidious like viscous muck sloshing against the corners of his skull every time he came across someone strong enough to be a threat. Yet even still, Killua had stayed.

He had stayed through every run-in with Hisoka and his bizarre brand of disturbingly lethal, through every deadly threat of his family and their particularly possessive hold on his life. He had stayed through being the Phantom Troupe’s captive, through a madman’s constant bomb threats in a game that wasn’t really a game at all. He had stayed through Chimera ants of all shapes and sizes and strengths, through the King’s royal guards, through Youpi, through  _Pitou_.

He had stayed—

—Just long enough to watch Gon leave.

The wind had smelled like spring, like flowers blooming and birds nesting and creatures coming out of hibernation to greet the changes and begin the cycle of rebirth, and Killua  _resented_  it. There wasn’t a single aspect of that day that had been anything but cheery, except for the part where Gon took one step across a metal plate in the ground and was suddenly worlds away from Killua’s reach.

Alluka’s hand had been warm and soft and a gentle squeeze of pressure keeping Killua focused on putting one foot in front of the other, methodical in a way he prided himself in being. He still couldn’t remember a word that she’d said to him in the first hour since he and Gon had separated, and how horrible of a brother was he for  _that_?

Gon’s farewell smile had tasted like acid sliding down Killua’s throat, burning the entire trail down into his stomach. Burning hours afterwards when all Killua could see when he closed his eyes was that smile, those eyes, everything picture perfect, bright as always, light personified. And  _gone_.

Gon had walked away from him easily. This memory will stick with Killua for years; that even after he had  _stayed_  so many times before, after he had risked everything,  _everything_  to keep Gon safe, to bring him back to life, that Gon had still turned away and headed for his absentee father with a genuine smile on his face.

He hadn’t even looked back. Killua would know. 

He had looked back.

✧

It had been three years since Gon had seen Killua, his eyes a bright ethereal blue, his smile wide enough to bring tiny crinkles to the sides of his eyes. Hands tucked into his pockets, posture slouched and sluggish as usual, though Gon knew that his muscles were poised to spring, a caged cat perpetually predatory.

It was true that Gon had never really had friends before—he was friendly to just about everyone he met and he remembered people easily—but he had never had anyone to call  _his_. Someone to be there with him wherever he went, to be right beside him, adventurous and strong and  _fun_.

Not until Killua.

It had been easy with Killua; their hearts danced around the same tune and their hands were both rough and callused and strong. He didn’t have to hold anything back with Killua, if anything he had to give  _more_. Killua’s presence alone was enough of an incentive to push him forwards and make him chase all the things he’d ever wanted in his life.

He hadn’t known that one day, after the world had changed its colors and the sky bled red enough that Gon still couldn’t believe a true blue sky when he saw it, that Killua would  _become_  one of those things.

Gon had always known that he wanted Killua in his life, ever since the very first moment that he had met him in the Hunter Exams. It was just as he’d said: easy. Killua’s smile, his sense of humor, the easy way he got embarrassed and the hidden strength of his delicate-looking body with power coursing through every vein of him along an electric current, all of it made Gon happy.

There were a lot of things that made Gon happy. Adventures, strong opponents, any chance to get stronger, animals, the ocean, Mito-san, the unreachable stars, Ging. He could find happiness in any small thing, really, so long as he gave it his full attention.

He’d travelled all over the world in search of his father, running through forests with trees tall enough to breach the atmosphere, deserts dry enough to crack his skin wide open, tumultuous seas desperate and hungry and trying to swallow him whole in the black of night.

He’d seen types of cats with six legs that could climb trees quicker and more efficiently than any kind of monkey, species of flowers with teeth and tongues and razorblade petals, more predatory and lethal than any walking carnivore. He’d flown atop the back of a bird that at the time he’d thought was as big and bright as the sun, monstrous in size with a booming call to match, a mane of hair like flickering flames, hot to the touch.

There wasn’t much in the world that Gon feared. Those dangerous landscapes, each of which having tried to suck him down until the life was leeched right through his pores—those animals with their pinprick eyes and their scythe claws and their blurring speed—none of that scared him. The challenge of surviving them was the excitement that he supposed his father enjoyed, too, when he travelled. Gon had had some of the best experiences of his life trying to survive things that wanted to kill him.

But he wasn’t naïve anymore; he understood that his actions and behaviors—at one time so selfish and so self-centered—hadn’t only affected  _him_. Not when he’d had friends working with and around him, not when Killua had been there at his side willing to do anything,  _anything_  to keep Gon alive.

It hadn’t taken him the full three years to realize it, but it’d taken a long time for him to accept it. Three years of confused contemplation, of picturing Killua in his mind, of feeling various emotions rise and bubble up within him, of ascertaining what feelings meant what. Three years of perplexing dreams and bewildering responses to those dreams, three years of feeling an empty hollow space in his heart he couldn’t explain, and finally he understood.

Out of all of the things in the world that made Gon happy, Killua made him the happiest.

✧  
 

Alluka was no longer at his side, but he was only slightly worried about that fact since she was staying with some people he trusted. When she’d still been with him, they’d periodically gone to Whale Island to visit Mito-san, out of kindness, out of respect, out of some disturbingly tight sensation clutching around his heart that said  _if you go to Mito-san you will find Gon, too_.

He never actually found Gon when he visited Whale Island, but every time he visited, Gon was everywhere.

He was in the floorboards in Mito-san’s home, strong and sturdy beneath Killua’s weight—heavier now, three years later—emitting a low groan when Alluka steps somewhere with a weakness.

He was in the night sky, deep black smeared across the world and speckled with so many white-hot stars Killua had to blink rapidly to get them out of his head even days later when he and Alluka are on a train heading somewhere new.

He was in the deep green of the open plains before the tree line, the gentle lift of bioluminescent poisonous butterflies lifting themselves into the air, the lively chatter down by the docks, the quiet slide of waves cresting against the shore and leaving immediately after.

Killua did not want to call Gon. He didn’t even know if he still had his phone or if he carried it on him anymore or even had the same number as before and okay so maybe he  _did_ want to call him just a little bit but regardless, he wasn’t going to call him. Even if he felt a little bad about not informing him that his sister was going to be staying there with Mito-san and Palm, protected and cared for in ways she never had been before. It wasn’t something Killua was used to, not anymore.

He’d been with Alluka for every minute of those three years, taking her to see the world, to experience what it was like to live a normal life without being confined to a pastel-painted room full of lifeless replacements. Killua had taken her everywhere he could think to make their time together as memorable as possible, snuggling into one another in front of campfires up in the blizzards of mountaintops and down south with their bare feet in the warm water of the ocean on an overpopulated beach.

It didn’t really matter where he took her, really. She was just happy to be  _free_ , to be at his side, able to explore the world for the first time with her big brother’s hand wrapped around her own. She openly worried about him, though, constantly able to see through him when no one else ever could—no one except.

He supposed it made sense, since he had spent so much time with her and showed her the most honest sides of himself more often than not. She was experienced in reading his face, in being able to distinguish between fake smiles and real ones and when it was okay to ask about the fake ones because sometimes?

Sometimes he wasn’t okay, not nearly. And in the beginning when she’d begun to notice and she’d asked about it, he hadn’t been able to find the words to explain it. His face had simply shut down, his eyes wide and wet and quivering, lost in a void no one else could reach him from, not even Alluka or Nanika in all of their endless compassion.

He’d gotten better at hiding it, though. If he was good for anything it was being strong for those he loved, so he made sure to keep the darkness at bay, ignoring it until Alluka was asleep in his arms or against his lap. Only then would he let it take over, make heavy his shoulders and his head, his entire body drooping until all he could do was stare blankly into his own mind, replaying memories he wished he could forget.

His mind carried him back to two months ago when he’d returned to Whale Island with Alluka at his side, his usual small grin rising over his face slow as a sigh when Mito-san waved at him from where she’d been pinning her laundry up in front of the house. He hadn’t expected much to have changed, not the house and definitely not Mito-san—she was kind and gentle but had a backbone like  _steel_  and Killua couldn’t help but respect her for it.

She wrapped her arms around Alluka like she was accepting something long lost from her back into her soul, encompassing her with gentleness and a grasp reluctant to let go. Killua stood a few feet away, hands tucked into black pockets, shoulders hunched forward, eyes soft and heavy. He could still remember the cloying smell of sweetbread coming from inside the house, the hot lick of the sun leaving beads of sweat behind on his nape, the low hum and chatter of insects and creatures unknown from the forest hedges.

The way Mito-san’s eyes had lifted slowly, cautiously, to meet his own; her lips opening around news he didn’t want to hear.

_Gon is close_.

Why was it that words with enough power to crush him and make his chest feel like it was caving in on him always came in threes? My first friend, my best friend, we’ll meet again.

Gon is close.

_I love you_.

Killua’s spine straightened as though struck by lightning, his hands fisting in his pockets, eyes wide. Mito-san studied his reaction closely, sympathetically, knowing what her words meant to him—what they  _did_ to him. Or maybe she didn’t know, maybe she only had an inkling, an idea, the very tip of an iceberg that had been trying to take him down with it since the very first day he realized Gon would leave him.

That someone Gon didn’t even know beyond a name and a relation would have a stronger call than someone who had stayed by Gon’s side when he was trying to get stronger, when he was bloody and beaten and confused, when rage burned up every ounce of himself until he was no longer recognizable.

When he was dead; a shell of the boy he’d once been, living on the effort of machines and technology, every part of him burnt away.

But Killua had freed Alluka and together they’d breathed life back into the ashes of Gon’s remains and out he had come, the phoenix Killua remembered before the ants, before Pitou, brighter and more dazzling than the stars in the sky. It was Killua who was always at his side. It was Killua who had orchestrated his rebirth; all the while his father had sat knowingly aside, uncaring, unbothered.

And this was the person Gon had chosen to chase after. Killua understood Gon’s reasons, he understood why it was so important to him and he didn’t resent him for wanting to find his father. It was the way Gon hadn’t even acknowledged Killua’s feelings when he’d turned around and said his goodbyes. It was the way that Gon hadn’t taken a moment to think about how Killua, no longer the same person he’d once been, would feel being set loose on a world that had never accepted him as anything but a monster.

It was hurt, plain and simple, that festered and grew into anger.

Killua had a right to be angry. Gon did too, though Killua wasn’t sure he’d realized it yet. They both had things to apologize for: Gon took too much and didn’t return; Killua kept too much and gave too much, plain and simple.

They were both at fault. But it was Gon that had chosen to leave, to run ahead and leave Killua in the shadows without a clue of how to exist in the world as anything but a murderer. That wasn’t Gon’s fault, either, not really. But it was something that Killua had learned from Gon himself that friends don’t do.

Friends do not abandon friends.

Having Alluka at his side helped because he loved her dearly and her compassion was contagious and she kept him busy enough to forget that the skin of his hands were painted blood red with the thousands of lives he’d taken, that his muscles and his bones danced to the tune of his steady heartbeat prefacing the strings of screams and the percussion of death rattles. The only thing that Alluka couldn’t do for him was keep him out of the shadows of his own mind, but that wasn’t any fault of hers.

Killua’s mind was a labyrinth of self-loathing, every synapse riddled with confusion and indecision about where he was headed and what the point of his existence was. But Alluka slowed the progression of the negative thoughts, brightened them with her laughter and her smiles and the way her eyes lit up whenever she slipped her hand into his and felt his fingers gently squeeze back.

Killua was learning to accept himself, and one of the first hurdles he’d jumped had been validating his hurt and his anger at what Gon had done to him. Some days he woke up and felt like he was overreacting, that it wasn’t worth it to hold a grudge, that being with Gon at any time, for any length of time, was enough, enough, enough.

It was  _more_ than enough.

But then he’d shake his head, card his fingers through his hair and  _pull_ , reminding himself that Gon had never apologized to him even after he’d taken so much that Killua had, admittedly, freely given. There was still a need, there. A need for an apology and an explanation and Killua knew in the tightly corded strands of his heart tucked so deep inside of him that he  _deserved_ one.

Alluka had been the one to offer, the one to step closer into the protective cage of Mito-san’s arms before looking Killua dead in the eyes, unwavering.

“I want to stay, onii-chan,” she said, smiling slightly. It’d taken him a moment, a jerky nod of his head, still breathless with the knowledge that  _Gon was close_ , that he could be there in days, in hours, in minutes. That Killua had no actual timeframe to work with, that Mito-san’s voice had said  _close_  but her eyes had said  _run_.

“You should go,” Alluka continued, smile lifting slightly. There was no subterfuge in her expression or her tone; she was being genuine. Killua, feeling a breath get locked in the cage of his chest, stuck in his throat like food he’d forgotten to chew, only stared.

“I’ll be fine, onii-chan!” Alluka’s eyes became a little watery, delicate hands lifting to wipe at her tear-tracked cheeks. “I’ll miss you of course, because I love you the most.”

“I’m staying,” he said, automatically. Anything else was unthinkable. “Of course I’m staying with you.”

“Onii-chan,” she whispered, giving him the look he was so familiar seeing on her face when she really,  _really_  wanted something. “It’ll just be for a little while.”

Stunned by the finality in her tone and the steel in her expression, Killua felt the conflict ripping through his rapidly beating heart—the need to run, to run far and fast and not look back until he was sure that he’d put half the world between him and Gon—and the need to stay with Alluka, a need entrenched so deep in his being that it was in his veins, his bones, his muscles; it was a physical ache coursing through his body, centering in his heart where she belonged.

His lips opened to object, to refuse, to assert that there was no way that he would ever leave her there unprotected and alone,  _alone_ , again. He couldn’t leave her alone.

But then it was like she was reading his mind, like she could see the thought processes forming and connecting behind his wide shrewd gaze and she knew, she  _knew_. She shook her head, frowning at him.

“I’ll have Mito-san and Nanika, of course!” and before Killua could respond, Mito-san cleared her throat, bringing a dainty fist up to her mouth for just a moment.

“Palm-san is also visiting for a while. She just got here a few days prior.” And Killua hated it, he  _hated_ it, but knowing that there was someone there who truly could protect Alluka made his heart race even quicker, electrical pulses coursing throughout his body and making the muscles in his legs twitch to flee, to activate Godspeed and clear the world so that there was no chance of him encountering Gon here, now, when he was still figuring things out, when he was still too hurt to stand up for himself without breaking under Gon’s luster.

The words  _I can’t_  were on his lips but Alluka’s eyes were shrewd and he recognized a defeat when he saw one. He glanced up to the house as though he could see Palm inside, knowing that her presence there was the final nail in his coffin. He moved towards Alluka, legs bending and knees falling heavily to the ground, grinding into the dirt as she ran into his open arms. He pressed her face into the side of his neck, petting her long hair and whispering assurances into her ear, hugging her close. She nodded and hiccupped, pressed a kiss to his cheek and lightly touched his forehead.

“Onii-chan, you better call me every day!” she said, grinning. He nodded his head as he got back to his feet, rubbing the small buildup of saltwater in the corner of his eyes with a fisted hand. He turned to Mito-san, eyes sharp and sinister.

“You call me if anything happens.” He said, voice pitched low enough to heat an entire planet from the inside out. “Anything.”

“I will.” Mito-san assured, tone steadfast, eyes astute. Killua nodded, decided to trust her and Palm and felt like he was leaping off a cliff without any plan to catch himself before he hits the bottom. But he knew it was something he had to do, that Alluka would be protected and that he’d talk to her every day and that this was something she truly wanted.

He took a few steps backwards; staring hard at Alluka as if she were going to change her mind, beg him to stay. She did none of those things. Her tearful eyes stared and her smile was affectionate enough to break his heart but she didn’t stop him, merely waved and said, “See you soon, onii-chan! Have fun!”

The electricity, as always, began at the roots; turned every spike of his hair into searing razorblades, ran down his body in currents that would char any defenseless creature within five feet of him. He watched Alluka’s and Mito-san’s hair start to stand on end in response to his proximity; turned away from them with the sound of a building storm in his wake.

His first step brought him to the tree line with a resulting fissure opening up behind him, cracking like a whip through the air, loud enough to break open the sky.

Killua had been taught to run only from the things that he knew he couldn’t defeat, the unknowns that had potential, the creatures that could destroy him.

He felt no qualms in running away from Gon Freecss.

He was the most dangerous, after all.

✧  
 

Gon makes it home to Whale Island three days after Alluka chose to stay. He’s taller and the strength that had settled into his muscles as a child had grown and expanded to widen his chest, his shoulders, making him carry most of his weight in his upper body. His thighs were strong and powerful and he’d had to ask Mito-san to custom design him a new pair of shorts, even when she’d protested and suggested he try pants for a change.

He kept the shorts.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like change—change was what had helped him grow strong! It was just that he was more comfortable in shorts, and boots, and a tank top, though each article had had to be customized because he’d grown more than he’d ever expected to as a seventeen-year-old boy.

He wondered how Killua had grown.

Killua had always been tall and lean and cut like the finest blade, with a mop of ashen hair and eyes sharp enough to make a person bleed with a glance. Gon wondered if he’d grown taller, if Killua’s perfectly sculpted muscles had expanded like his had or if they were still long and lean and beautiful. He wondered if he had the same hairstyle, or if maybe he’d let his hair grow out a bit like his father’s. If he was being honest with himself, he really doubted that last one.

When Gon had returned home and found Alluka in his house, his first instinct had been to search for Killua. It was strange enough that he hadn’t been at Alluka’s side, but Gon had been too excited at the prospect of actually  _seeing_  him after all this time that he hadn’t stopped to ask until he was sure he’d checked the entire island for him.

He’d found Alluka and Mito-san cooking in the kitchen, aprons tied neatly and arms elbow-deep in a massive bowl of flour. Alluka was laughing; the sound like gentle wind chimes shifting in the breeze, and Mito-san was looking down at her with tender, affectionate eyes like she was the reason happiness existed.

“Where is he?” he’d asked, hands on his knees, panting. His grin was wide enough to bring crinkles to the sides of his eyes. “Where’s Killua?”

Every move Mito-san made in the silence that followed his question was pointed, deliberate. She didn’t turn to look at him as she slowly removed her arms from the flour, wiping them on her apron and making a mess of the kitchen linoleum. She washed her hands without a word and then wiped them against her apron again, finally turning to look at him with heavy eyes and a sad smile. Finally, she spoke, and every word went through Gon like needles, tiny and painful but ultimately bearable.

“He’s not here,” Mito-san said, watching his expression. Alluka glanced over her shoulder, smiling sadly at him. “He left a few days ago.”

Gon didn’t miss a beat. “Where did Killua go?”

“Onii-chan’s exploring!” Alluka chimed in, joyful and buoyant before her shoulders sagged a little and she pouted, her expression playful. “He hasn’t called me yet today.”

“He will,” Mito-san assured her, turning to smile at the young girl at her shoulder. Gon stared at them, watchful. He took in the things neither of them were saying and accepted them, knew that he was the reason for Killua’s absence. That was fine, he thought, nodding to himself. It made sense.

“Hmm,” he hummed, looking out the window beyond Mito-san’s shoulder, over the hills leading up to his house and down to the pier where he could just barely see the dock, the undulating ocean waves against the shore. His expression brightened considerably as he resolutely slammed his fist against his palm and said, “Then I’ll just have to go find him!”

Mito-san gave him an encouraging look, smiling slightly before turning back to help Alluka knead more of the flour.

“He’s quicker than you are, Gon.” Mito-san doesn’t say it to hurt Gon’s feelings; it’s more like a reminder. Gon took it as the testament to Killua’s abilities that it was.

“Mm,” Gon hummed proudly, beaming.

“He had a head start, too.”

“I’ll find him.” He said, and there was steel laced between every letter. His eyes widened and his smile grew, the same expression he always got whenever he was faced with a significant challenge. Mito-san grinned, glancing over her shoulder and looking up at him, marveling for a moment at his height and the strength she felt coursing through him. His eyes flickered back to Mito-san, focused on her face, and his smile calmed a little, turning his blithe expression intense with his newfound determination.

He said, “If it’s Killua, I’ll find him.”

“Mm,” Alluka hummed; an assertion wrapped in trust.

_You’ll find him_.  
 

✧  
 

Six months later and half a world’s distance travelled, Killua stands perched atop a precipice, hands tucked into his pockets as the sun rises slow inch-by-inch right before his eyes, setting the darkened edges of his sapphire irises and the entire sky stretched out wide in front of him on fire.

“Killua,” a voice says behind him in a tone he knows more intimately than the pounding rhythm of his own heart.

Killua sucks in a deep breath, and turns.

**Author's Note:**

> (Breakdances softly)


End file.
